Black and White
by SomberSerenity
Summary: It's been ten years since Claire revealed her powers to the world. In the midst of a bloody civil war, Claire returns to Costa Verde to attend her father's funeral. While there, she runs into a familiar face, and learns that not everything can be seen in black and white.


Claire had watched everyone she cared for die.

Though not all of their deaths had been a direct result of her actions, she still felt a heavy sense of guilt as every familiar face slowly faded into oblivion, her own world shrinking until there was no one left to recognize her face.

It had been years since that night at the carnival. Even she couldn't have foreseen the effects of her impulsive decision, that single leap that put everyone she loved in danger. She felt like a child throwing a tantrum, demanding attention and recognition of a gift that she'd both embraced and been disgusted with, both loved and hated. She'd gotten what she wanted – attention. But the price it came with was more than she was willing to pay.

It turned out she didn't have a choice.

She forced herself to keep her eyes straight ahead, focused intently on the sleek black coffin that held her father's body. He'd lived longer than anyone had expected, once the diagnosis had been made. It still seemed strange to her that, after all the danger he'd exposed himself to, it was cancer that cost him his life.

She felt her hands clench into fists at her sides, her nails digging into her skin hard enough to break the skin, to draw blood, and to heal once more. She hadn't learned of his condition until it was too late. It was Lauren who had managed to contact her, and even then she only did it out of a sense of propriety that she made clear was for Noah's sake, not Claire's. Lauren had seen the aftermath of Claire's decision that night on the Ferris wheel, had sat with her father through the many sleepless nights that she knew would have followed her disappearance a few days later. Though Claire hadn't known, she still felt responsible for her father's death; after all, a single drop of her blood could have cured him.

She could have saved him.

The preacher stood still and silent, having finished the eulogies, speaking of the goodness of the man he had never met. Claire watched as the casket was slowly lowered into the waiting hole in the ground, thinking of the time she'd spent under the earth with her father, facing his death as she was now. This time, however, she knew she wouldn't feel the relief of finding themselves back on solid ground. He was truly gone, and the thought felt like a fist to her stomach. For a moment it was all she could do not to fall to the grass beneath her feet, to let herself cry for one of the only men in her life she'd ever loved. It took a conscious effort to push back the impending sobs, to smooth her face into the stoic mask she'd thought she'd perfected over the past ten years.

"It's a shame," a woman to her left said, her voice hushed and husky with tears. Claire glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, though she didn't recognize her. That hardly surprised her, however. The fact that there were more than a handful of people attending the funeral had come as a shock to her, as she realized that she'd missed out on what seemed to have become a significant part of her father's life.

"It is," another woman commented, her eyes trained on the headstone that adorned the fresh grave. "He was the best man we could have hoped to have, fighting against those people. What will happen now that he's gone?"

The words brought a chill to Claire's blood that had nothing to do with the quickly dropping temperatures. She ducked her head down, letting her dark hair cover her eyes as she turned away from the procession, shoving her hands into her pockets and walking towards the entrance of the cemetery.

As she turned to leave, she caught a glimpse of Lauren, her head in her hands as her shoulders shook with silent sobs, mourning for the man she loved. Her head lifted for a moment, and when their eyes met, Claire felt as though the ground had opened up underneath her feet. The guilt she felt deep in her chest was matched only by the blame she found staring back at her. The spell was only broken when Lauren looked away again, wiping tears away with the back of her hand. Claire didn't waste a moment before hurrying out of the cemetery, shame clawing its way out of her chest until she could barley breathe.

X-X-X-X

The government responded swiftly to the video footage of Claire that night at the carnival. The fear and panic that had been induced in them before, with Nathan's rounding up of everyone gifted or special, had been rekindled, and now the flame burned brighter than ever before. The public was finally in on the secret, and what started as quiet whispers quickly turned into a roar, calling for justice from these 'terrorists' who had done nothing wrong except exist.

The disappointment Claire found in her father's eyes every time she dared to meet them was enough to make her question her decision, even more so when she found out he had returned to his work. He claimed it was to protect her, people like her, from themselves and the government that wanted to hurt them. She was sick of his excuses, sick of watching him betray her and then having to wonder if she had simply misunderstood his motives. She became the leading proponent of what came to be known as the gifted movement, the spokeswoman for their cause: to live a normal life, out in the open. Since she couldn't be killed, it made sense that she be the one taking the physical risks, putting herself in the way of those who would do her harm, knowing that they couldn't.

She forged new bonds this way. She left home when she knew that her family was being put in danger for her sake, when they began to look at her as though they didn't recognize her any longer, when she had to face her father as the face of the enemy, all the while knowing he was trying to do what was right by her. She made new allies, including several of those she had known before. Peter, while at first hesitant to stir up any more trouble than was necessary, finally stepped in when the rounding up began again full-force, under much less 'kind' leadership. More often than not people were simply killed instead of collected, their bodies left in bloody heaps on the streets or in their homes as a warning to those who would attempt to stand out.

Others, such as Hiro and Ando, chose to stand on the sidelines, to work on their own terms, refusing to step in and cause more violence unless it was absolutely necessary. Claire had expected Sylar to melt back into the shadows as he always had, concerned only with his own wants and needs. However, he was insistent on wanting to help, wanting to stand up for those he now considered his own. Though he had renounced violence and his 'old ways', Claire knew it was only a matter of time before he turned on those he claimed to protect for his own self-gain, that the group she was slowly forming would be nothing more than a meal to him, a way to gain more power. She knew the kind of man he was; even now, years later, she still sometimes woke at night, feeling his fingers on her skin, probing within the most secret and personal part of herself: her mind. She could still remember the disgust she felt as he stood in front of her, proclaiming every similarity between them that had kept her up at night, made her stomach turn. No, his faked empathy wouldn't be enough for her to allow him anywhere near herself or those she had come to call friends. And while she knew somewhere inside herself that, if he truly wanted to come closer, he would have no trouble forcing her hand, she chose to believe that it was her own strength that kept him at bay, that had kept him from her sight for years now.

She lost Gretchen soon after the footage of her 'extraordinary' act played on television. Her friend was unable to understand how she could put so many people in danger, how she could make herself so obviously miserable while ascertaining that it was what she wanted, what the world needed. Claire attempted to maintain contact with the woman she believed she could love, though she gave up soon after the first murders began to break out on the streets, the footage playing in loops on her television until she forced herself to turn it off, to put down the phone and forget.

The civil war that she had caused had taken thousands of lives, both gifted and normal alike. For all the power she held with her own people, nothing she did seemed to make a difference. No matter how many of them she killed, more simply took their place. The guilt of the blood on her hands, from both sides, was enough to make her want to quit. She knew that she couldn't, however; she had made this mess, and she had to clean it up by whatever means necessary. It wasn't until recently that she began to see it as a lost cause, as more and more of her friends were murdered or kidnapped and tortured. When Lyle stood with the government and was killed by a raid that she organized, she knew that any shred of decency she had hoped to maintain was irrevocably lost.

Sylar had been right about her. They were too alike.

X-X-X-X

Claire closed the door behind her, leaning heavily against it as she set slipped her keys back into her pocket, letting out a long breath. She pulled the hood from her head, dripping rainwater onto the wooden floor beneath her feet. She turned and set the lock securely into place on the door before going to the window, checking for any signs of forced entry and making sure they were locked. Only once she was secure in the knowledge that she truly was alone did she allow herself a respite, a chance to relax. She sank down slowly onto the bed that sat at the center of the hotel room, listening to the springs creak beneath her weight.

In every situation she'd imagined, seeing her father again wouldn't have come ten years later once he was already dead. She'd always thought that, once everything was over, once she'd accomplished her goals, somehow they could rebuild burned bridges, as he'd said to her so long ago. She felt a bitter smirk tug on her lips at the thought. It had been foolish thinking, fit more for the child she had long ago left behind.

Still, though, the pain was raw. She felt tears prickling at her eyes once more, and though she was alone, she still refused to let them fall. She'd seen so much death over the past decade that she felt she should have been immune to it, but all she could see when she closed her eyes was her father comforting her, holding her, brushing hair from her face and calling her Claire-Bear.

X-X-X-X

She woke to the sound of a knock on the door.

It only took an instant for her body to be on full-alert, goose bumps rising on her skin as she slipped to her feet, willing the floor not to creak underneath her weight.

She'd only been at this hotel since the night before. The idea that someone could have followed her this far, all the way to Costa Verde from New York, would have seemed absurd under any other circumstances. However, she'd been running for years now, and had learned from experience to never remain in one place for very long. Even when she was with others, those she worked closely with, she preferred to keep to her own company. She and Peter had shared living quarters for a few years when things were reaching their critical point, though once he was lost to the war she had begun, she didn't stop moving.

It seemed ironic, considering the fact that she wanted the public's eye when she started it all, that now she would be avoiding it with everything she had. It wasn't that she'd given up the fight; she still organized raids, kept in touch with the others. It was simply that she'd learned the futility of facing this new threat head-on. Their methods had to be quieter, striking from the shadows before the others had a chance to react. And if that meant she had to feel like a coward, so be it.

She didn't feel like one now, however. She didn't pause in her stride as she slipped the gun off the bedside table where she'd left it, the cool metal bringing a sense of peace and reassurance that nothing else possibly could. She turned off the safety, peering through the peephole, one hand ready on the doorknob.

One look at the face on the other side of the door made her fingers tremble, her grip on the gun loosening until it clattered to the floor beneath her feet. She knelt quickly, fumbling for it with a curse on her breath before yanking the door open, leveling the weapon directly at the chest of her father.

He looked exactly the same as she remembered him, but the lines in his face spoke of the years she'd been away, the years he'd spent first fighting for her and then fighting simply to live. He carried himself differently; though the confidence was still there, something else belittled it, made him seem smaller than he had before. For the first time in her life, Claire didn't feel like a little girl in his presence. She no longer needed protecting.

"Who are you?" She asked, the coldness in her voice surprising even herself. Her father was dead and buried underground, cancer having eaten away the last bits of his life. Whoever this man was, he was a stranger, someone imitating his form. Her mind, usually so clear even in times of trouble, was foggy, having trouble pinpointing what exactly was happening in front of her very eyes.

"Claire-Bear," he said softly, and she nearly dropped her gun once more. She could remember those same eyes, that same voice lulling her to sleep as a child, giving her comfort when she was afraid, protecting her when she was weak.

"You're dead," She said, though even to her own ears it sounded more like a question than a statement. The man in front of her sighed, reaching one hand forward. Claire quickly stepped back, lifting the gun until it pointed directly at his forehead. "_You're dead_," she repeated, almost as though to convince herself. "I just got back from your funeral hours ago. I _saw_ your face in that coffin. I saw them put you underground."

Her father – no, this stranger – stepped forward again, and she found herself moving back, leaving him room to come inside, making every mistake she could possibly make in the face of an enemy.

"You've seen the things I'm capable of," the man was saying, his eyes pleading, so convincing. "You don't think I could fake my own death? We were sent after a shapeshifter. He took my form before I could react. The men I was with killed him before I had a chance to do anything else. It was easy to get his body, to set this up…I needed a way out, Claire. Back to you."

Claire could feel her hands shaking, the gun in her hands losing its focus. She heard the loud crash as it hit the floor beneath her feet, felt the tremble in her lip as she struggled to suppress tears once more. He stepped forward, enclosing her in his arms, the embrace she'd longed for ever since she'd last seen him years ago. And suddenly she was a child again, an immature and impulsive teenage girl who needed her father's help to guide her, to make the right decisions.

"I'm so sorry," She whispered, clutching fistfuls of his jacket in her hands as she held him close, wishing she could change everything she'd ever done, if only she could have felt this sooner. "I messed everything up." She heard the catch in her own voice, tasted the tears that slid down her cheeks. She looked up at him when he pulled back slightly, his eyes taking in every inch of her, his hand cupping her cheek softly. She leaned into the embrace, closing her eyes.

"You grew up, Claire-Bear," he said softly. "You're so beautiful." His fingers touched a strand of her dark hair. "You dyed your hair," he said, and the comment seemed so offhand, so unimportant, that she felt a laugh break its way through her sobs.

"I did," she affirmed to both, letting go only long enough for him to close the door behind him. She picked up the gun, turned the safety back on, and set it back down on the bedside table.

"I need you to know that I'm sorry," he said, and she felt the words almost as a pain in her chest. She turned back to him slowly, wiping her tears with the back of her hands.

"Dad, you didn't-"

"Please just let me finish," he said, and she nodded slowly. "I forgive you for what you think you've done. That's what you wanted to hear, isn't it? And I know it's true." The words set her back on edge, sounding as though they were coming from another's mouth, using her father only as a mouthpiece.

"I know he would forgive you. Everyone has a chance at redemption, Claire." She watched in unmasked horror as the father she'd already lost once began to fade once more, giving way to an eerily familiar face, unmarked by time, just as hers was. "I'm sorry that I had to do it this way, but there was no other way you'd let me in, and-"

She didn't hear the rest of the words as she scrambled for the gun on the table. He didn't even fight her, watching instead as she pulled the trigger once, twice, three times, knowing that she was doing nothing but satisfying her own rage and pain at this monster that had once again manipulated her, _touched_ her, and that she had let it happen.

She watched as the bullets dropped to the floor, his flesh healing almost instantly, just as she knew it would. A frustrated scream escaped her throat, the sound loud enough to make even him flinch back slightly. She heard pounding at the door now, shouts from those who had been sleeping peacefully next door. She couldn't even bring herself to care that she had just given herself away, that everything she'd worked for was going to be torn from her grip. All she could feel was a cold, pure hatred for the monster who stood in front of her, his blood dripping onto the carpet.

Claire didn't have a chance to react as he reached out, his hand gripping her arm tightly. She tensed, intending to twist herself away from his grasp when suddenly, she found herself standing in her old bedroom in Costa Verde, surrounded by everything she never thought she'd see again.

Cold realization began to dawn on her as she forced herself away from Sylar, cursing loudly as she realized that her gun hadn't made the jump. She turned her eyes back to him, glaring. His shape was hard to make out in the darkness, and though she knew exactly where the light switch was, she couldn't bring herself to reach out for it.

"Did you kill Hiro for that power?" She demanded, venom dripping from her words. "I knew that every word out of your mouth was pure bullshit from the moment you started preaching about 'redemption' and 'forgiveness'. You're still the same psychopath you were before!" She screamed, struggling to fight back the feelings of helplessness and desperation that his presence evoked in her, the memory of lying helpless on a table in her own home as he violated her in one of the worst ways she could imagine. In her mind it felt like rape, a violation of the most personal part of herself.

"Claire, I don't do that anymore," Sylar said, and the calmness in his stance and his voice only served to anger her further. "You should understand more than anyone else that murderers can feel remorse."

The words felt like a physical slap as she thought of all of those she had lost, either by her own hand or as a result of her actions. Lyle and Peter stood out in stark contrast to the others, two people she'd loved more than anyone else, her brother and her hero. And she'd killed them both.

"I did it out of necessity," she whispered, hating that she felt the need to justify herself to him. "It was a war. It was – is – us or them. You," She said, looking back at him, feeling her anger return once more. "You killed for yourself, for your own gain. You killed my father!" She shouted, thinking once more of Nathan. "You let me believe you were Nathan, and then my father…." She turned her gaze back towards him, surprised to find something that looked somewhat like remorse on his features.

"The first wasn't my choice, Claire," he said, with patience as though he were speaking to a child throwing an unjustified tantrum. "I was trapped there, forcibly. By your grandmother, I might add." He sighed again, shaking his head. "I can't justify my actions to you. Peter-he saw inside my head, Claire. He forgave me. Didn't he ever tell you, all those times I tried to help?"

She struggled to ignore his words, pushing back remnants of many conversations and arguments she'd had with her uncle, brushing off his words about Sylar as a misunderstanding, as naïveté and nothing more. There could be no substance to the words. Sylar was, and always would be, a monster.

But was she truly any better?

They were both murderers. She thought again of the list of similarities he had drawn up that day at college, holding her against her will as she believed her friend's life was in danger. She remembered the way he'd pushed her down, kissed her, and condescendingly patted her leg as though she were nothing more than a stupid child who couldn't possibly understand an adult's world.

"Go to hell," she whispered, her voice low and dangerous. She could still feel his hands on her back, the comfort she'd so desperately craved from the father she'd just seen buried. No matter what his reasons, his motivations, he'd deceived her _again_.

"Ask me how many people I've killed."

Claire looked back at Sylar, narrowing her eyes. "Why would I believe anything you say?" She demanded. "Your word means nothing to me."

He sighed again, shaking his head. "I haven't killed anyone in ten years, Claire. Not for their powers. Only once or twice did I have to, to save my own life from the civil war that you started."

The blame implied in his words fueled both her guilt and her anger, and she kept her eyes on his dim form as she took a step towards the bedroom door. His eyes were focused on something else, something she couldn't see, as she slipped towards the door.

"You can forgive yourself," he said softly. The words made her stop, gripping the doorframe with one hand. "It's hard. God knows I'm still trying to forgive myself, but I'm getting there. I'm making amends. You can, too."

Now he did look at her, and she stared back, forcing herself to stand up straight, to face the man who had haunted her dreams on and off for years, the one she'd come to associate with the devil himself.

"We're nothing alike," she whispered, even as the words rang in her ears as a lie. She turned quickly, the layout of the house as familiar to her as though she'd lived here the whole time. She took the stairs two at a time, a strange sense of déjà vu rushing quickly towards her as she ran once more from her pursuer.

As she reached the kitchen, her eyes fell on the closet where she'd hidden from him years before, before darting quickly towards the living room where the table once lay, the one where she'd lain as vulnerable as a helpless child. She could hear his footsteps behind her, knew that if he wanted her dead he could do it with a flick of his hand.

She slowly turned to face him, surprised to find him so close. She should have heard him. Perhaps that was just another power he'd picked up from someone he'd murdered.

"I told you I don't do that anymore," he said, and with a cold chill she realized that he'd read her mind.

"You've really been stocking up, haven't you?" she asked, her voice bitter. "Did you kill Matt for that one? Leave his kid without a father? Oh, wait. It doesn't bother you to leave someone without a parent, does it, Sylar?"

"That's not my name anymore," he said, his voice low enough to make her stiffen once more. Anger had made its way back into his stance, his posture, as he stared back at her, his jaw clenched. "My name is Gabriel Gray. I'm not Sylar anymore."

"You'll always be Sylar," she said through clenched teeth, stepping forward. She wasn't as short as she used to be, and though she still had to look up to meet his eyes, she no longer felt like a child. "You're still using your powers for your own gain. You're still only thinking of yourself. You came here, what, so I'd_ forgive_ you? Did you really think that ten years would change my opinion of you whatsoever?" She shook her head quickly, ignoring the way his eyes watched her, as though he knew exactly who she was, as though he had any right. "Get the hell out of my head!" She shouted, finding a small satisfaction in the way he jumped, just barely. She thought again of the last time he'd done this to her, his fingers inside her mind, probing, picking, his breath on her ear, his lips forcing themselves on hers-

She could _feel _him recoil from her mind, taking a physical step back and looking at her with nothing short of pity in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Claire," he said. "I know you think I haven't changed, but I have. I didn't realize-I'm sorry."

The words meant nothing to her, as though he hadn't spoken at all. All she could see was the pity, and out of everything else, it was that which she couldn't stand the most.

"I don't know what Peter thought he saw in you," she said, but even to her own ears the words sounded weak, resigned. She felt her anger slowly melting away, exhausting taking its place. She'd lost her father twice that day, and now she was stranded far from her hotel room with a monster who was trying to convince her that he had reformed himself. "But you can't find forgiveness for murder." She wondered distantly if she was speaking of him or herself now. She wondered which of them had more blood on their hands.

"Maybe not," he amended, and she looked up, surprised. He was staring at her with that strange look once more, as though they were two halves of a whole, two sides of a coin. "But you can find peace with it. You can change yourself. You can make up for your mistakes, or at least spend your life trying to. I didn't come here for your forgiveness, Claire, because I know you can't give it to me. I came to you for _you_. All the things you've done-Peter told me how—"

Her head snapped up at her uncle's name, her entire body stiffening. "Peter spoke to you?" She asked, and he looked like a child who had been caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

"I asked him to," Sylar said slowly, watching her once more with that eerie attentiveness. "He allowed me to help with the movement from the sidelines. I tried to avoid killing unless it was necessary, as I said, but I helped. Sabotage, spying-shapeshifting can come in useful." Here he paused again, then looked at her more closely. "How did you think he found so much of the information he related back to you? No one who wasn't on the inside could have known some of those things. I was helping you, Claire, even while you rejected me, even while you hated me."

The words took a moment to sink in, and when they did, Claire felt her legs weaken. Her stomach turned as she realized that this man had been helping her, even as he seemingly disapproved of her methods. She couldn't even muster up any anger for Peter for betraying her to him, thinking only of the way it felt when he'd died the year before, and how hard it had been to get anything done without him.

Without Sylar, she realized slowly.

"Why?" She asked quietly, and felt her stomach lurch again at the sad smile she saw on his face.

"It was my fight, too. I didn't want anyone else hurt, but I wasn't going to stand by and let this happen." Here he paused once more. "It's not my place to place blame, either on you or anyone else. I can only judge myself. But you did what you thought the world needed. The future is an unpredictable thing, Claire. You had no way of knowing how things would turn out."

The reassurances were hollow coming from him. Claire watched the ground rise to meet her as her legs slid out from underneath her, barely managing to catch herself with her hands as she fell. She stayed prone on the floor, on hands and knees, listening to the ragged sound of her breath, watching the rapid rise and fall of her chest. It wasn't true; when she'd leapt from that Ferris wheel, it had been only for herself. She'd been tired of hiding, tired of running, tired of having to pretend to be something she never could be: normal. And though it had turned into a fight for others, it had begun selfishly.

"But your intentions now are for others," Sylar said, and Claire couldn't even bring herself to yell at him for reading her thoughts once more. He knelt down in front of her, and she quickly turned her face away, refusing to allow this man to comfort her. "You want them to be able to live in a world without fear. You want them to have the world you didn't." She didn't acknowledge the truth of the words, wishing desperately that he'd simply leave. When it became clear that he wouldn't, she slowly looked up.

"I still hate you," She whispered, and he nodded.

"I know. I wouldn't expect anything different."

And yet she hated herself just as much, if not more. She slowly pushed herself to a sitting position, wringing her hands together tightly in her lap. He reached out a hand towards her, and then seemed to think better of it, recoiling quickly.

"Hatred can drive a person to action, but it can also destroy them," he said, and she glanced at him from the corner of her eyes, peering through the curtain of her hair, a flimsy barrier from someone who could read her mind. "Be careful not to destroy yourself, Claire. You can do a lot of good. You will."

She didn't ask if he knew that for sure, if he'd seen the future like Hiro had been able to. She didn't want to know. The future was always changing. She never would have seen herself here, on her kitchen floor, sitting nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with the enemy of her childhood. She couldn't comprehend that they could possibly be on the same side, that he could have changed-even as she knew, somewhere deep inside herself, that he had.

Claire had always hated the gray area that her father had introduced into her life. Good and evil had always been simple for her. Black and white, clear cut. There was no room for compromise, she believed. However, her father had shown her differently, and while she'd been able to forgive him for the things he'd done, Sylar was different. He'd changed, or he believed he had. That much she was beginning to realize. However, the shift from black to gray, gray to dull white-her mind recoiled from the thought, choosing instead to stay in the safety of hatred and assurance.

She found it was easier to hate herself if she held herself to the same standards as him, if she believed them to be on the same level. She couldn't let go of that.

"I always said we were the same," Sylar said, and she bit back a curse as she realized that, once again, he was listening to everything she thought. "I still believe it to be true. We're very alike, Claire. But you were always better than me."

The words did little to comfort her, though they did bring back the tears she'd tried so hard to hold back until her father—no, Sylar—had shown up at her door. She hated herself even more for showing this weakness in front of him, but he could read her mind. It didn't matter what she showed him and what she didn't; he would know.

"I'm sorry. I'm still trying to get used to staying out of minds," he said, and she didn't even have the energy to respond, even with a biting comment. She buried her face in her hands, listening as if from a distance to the cries she struggled to suppress. Her grief for her father turned to grief for Peter, for Lyle, for everyone she'd lost, and soon she could barely breathe. She knew what a mess she looked, how pathetic she was, but her chest felt as though it would burst if she didn't release some of the tension inside of it.

It didn't make sense, to find herself here. She felt Sylar's hand on her shoulder, and even as she tried to shrug him off, he held on.

She knew that she'd never be able to truly forgive him. Too much had happened, and she'd held onto her hatred for too many years. However, he understood her. The thought still made her reel, but it wasn't an altogether unpleasant one anymore. Though she'd still thought of him as an enemy, most of her energy had been focused on fighting the government for the past ten years. He was still a constant wound, one that was easily opened up again, but he hadn't been the face she first thought of when she though of the enemy. She could remember the time he'd saved her life, how she'd held tightly onto his hand even as she hated it, struggling to save her own life from the black hole that threatened to pull her into oblivion. Even then he'd been struggling to change, and though he had fallen back into old habits, this time he hadn't. He'd proved that by helping her, at least.

She reached one hand out blindly, feeling a mixture of revulsion and desperation as her hand met his other one, clutching it tightly in one of her one. She kept her face turned down towards the ground, but she could feel him. One hand gently rested on her shoulder, and the other enveloped her own. She clung desperately to his hand, anchored to the ground once again by the very thing she had been trained to run from.

He didn't say a word as she cried, but he was there. And somehow, she was grateful. Maybe she wouldn't be able to forgive him, but maybe that didn't matter. Maybe things could change. He had shown her that, and while it still felt impossible to believe, he was different. Everything Peter had tried to tell her suddenly came together, as though she'd finally found the last piece to a puzzle. This man she sought comfort from, that she sought _humanity_ from, still had something good inside of him. Maybe she did, too.

Maybe she could change.


End file.
